


Always By Your Side

by pigeonfluff



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Character Study, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 12:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonfluff/pseuds/pigeonfluff
Summary: Riza Hawkeye is crying, and Roy Mustang feels like his entire world has been shattered.Or: Riza Hawkeye struggles with anxiety over the years, and Roy Mustang is the man who helps her through it.





	Always By Your Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [This_is_not_my_Penname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_is_not_my_Penname/gifts).



> I've been sitting on this piece for a few weeks now, because it's a very special one, written for my dearest This_Is_Not_My_Penname. She requested Royai and Riza being comforted after a bad panic attack, and it became this study.  
> Given the nature of this, it does contain depictions of anxiety, and actually having an anxiety attack.
> 
> Please, read and enjoy!

Riza Hawkeye is crying, and Roy Mustang feels like his entire world has been shattered.

She is small, the tears are barely whimpers as she shakes, clutching herself.

They’ve started calling him the Hero of Ishval, the saviour who ended the war, but what good is a hero who can’t even save one girl from her demons?

Riza Hawkeye is crying and he cannot let himself do nothing.

So Roy Mustang sits by her side, and pulls her close, holding her until the shaking subsides and his shirt is painted with her tears.

It’s the least he can do.

***

Riza Hawkeye no longer cries. Riza Hawkeye learned long ago how to suppress her tears, how to push through the pain and deny herself.

Roy Mustang blames himself. He is the one who led her here. He is the one who waded through the river of blood that washed over the burning desert, with her on his heels. And he is the one she follows still, a stoic shadow as he walks his straight and narrow path. He is the one she clings to, when the path seems to go missing.

Riza Hawkeye no longer cries, but she cannot quell her trembling. Her body tenses, breath short, stomach churning. She says she feels sick, that it's nothing, but the smallest provocation from Fuery, innocent inoffensive Fuery just looking for an answer to the military's impossible bureaucracy, and she is shaking, excusing herself, rushing from their office.

Roy too, finds an excuse and starts the hunt, his turn to follow her lead. He finds her in a barely used storage room, pacing, pacing, hands not able to keep still.

He pulls her into his arms and holds her tight, regulations be damned.

It's the least he can do.

Riza Hawkeye no longer cries, but her demons feed on her humanity, seeking her fears and multiplying them, drowning her. Her demons are eager to taste blood.

And Roy Mustang has promised to stand before them, and fight them himself if he must. The cost might be steep, but he stopped caring long ago.

There is so much he has sacrificed, but for her sake, it is worth it.

Riza Hawkeye no longer cries. Roy Mustang will not give her a reason to.

***

Riza Hawkeye trembles in the dark.

It is watching. It is watching. It is watching _._

All her nightmares are back to haunt her, all her demons are come to life, ready to fight her, here and now.

It is watching and it knows her and it knows not the meaning of fear.

She is alone. She is alone. She is a Queen without an army. She is a Queen without her King.

Riza Hawkeye trembles, and feels like she’s going to be sick when the phone rings.

It is watching, it is watchingitiswatchingitiswatching and it is a refrain so loud that it’s now part of the background, just another noise, just another fear just… Just…

She answers anyways, and  _ it _ is banished.

Really, she shouldn’t be surprised. After all these years Roy Mustang has the most uncanny timing. His voice is all she needs, and she takes in as much of it as she can. It is all of him that she can take.

It is  _ watching _ … 

But it cannot see her heart.

It cannot take her humanity.

Riza Hawkeye trembles, but her hand is steadied by another.

The flowers she finds at her door in the morning say everything that he could not speak aloud.

“It’s all going to be ok soon.”

***

Riza Hawkeye is too broken to tremble. 

She has fought a god, a nightmare, the very evil that had poisoned her nation, that had sent her down this path. And she has helped to kill it, to put it in its place, out of its misery. Amestris will be haunted no longer.

It is not watching. It will never watch again.

And yet the demons still assault her.

Riza Hawkeye knows that for her the battle will never cease. She will always feel the cold steel of the knife, the overwhelming pressure of the darkness, arms, pulling her close, shaking her, a voice, pleading, the darkness growing deeper deeper…

Roy Mustang being taken from her, dark hands gripping, pulling, screaming, screaming, so much screaming.

“Lieutenant!”

Roy Mustang is by her side, shaking her, touching her, here and real and present, present. He didn’t care about the instruments, he didn’t care about the injuries, he didn’t need his eyes to find her.

They’ve been together a long time, after all.

Roy Mustang finds his way into a bed for one, and holds her close, stroking her hair, kissing her head, whispering all the reassurance he could never find the words for before, long past the point of caring about regulations. After all, the military has no place for a blind man, and little patience for the leader of a coup.

Riza Hawkeye is too weak to tremble. Riza Hawkeye has been dragged through hell.

Riza Hawkeye allows herself an indulgence.

Riza Hawkeye is crying, and Roy Mustang sees for the first time a world made whole.

Together they have stood and fought a god. Together, they have won.

And together, they will stand to fight any demons that dare to threaten them again.

Riza Hawkeye is crying, and Roy Mustang is crying with her.

Flowers of hope bloom in Amestris, watered by the rain.

Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang stay, and face their future together.

It’s the least they can do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments? Questions? Just want to chat? Got requests? I love to hear it!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as Fluffmonger for a more direct line, or my random posts!


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